Create the World as You Create a Map in ‘Carto’

Carto is a stunning puzzle game where you play a lost child, wandering around an even-changing island you create as you play.

You have washed up on shore in this beautiful world. At the start, this island is small and empty – just a few map pieces make up the entire world. Moving around, however, you can find white wisps of new map pieces, which can be used to grow the world. These pieces can be taken into a map builder, where they can be slotted into the ocean making a map.

You can’t place these pieces wherever you want, as the world needs to connect with the same biomes and areas of others on the various sides. Your character, as well as various other characters, are also on some of these tiles. Once you start exploring and talking to them, you will learn more about the tribes around you.

Carto becomes more of a puzzle game while you talk to individuals. Some will tell you where your house is, or where an item is – and you will need to make sure the island matches up to what they are saying. For example, if a character says they live East of another house, you need to arrange the map so that their tile is East of that house, which will allow their house to appear to you.

Despite not remembering who you are, you will end up learning a lot about the tribes on this land. Some will need help with items, while others will just want to talk about this coming of age ceremony that is happening. It’s up to you to explore and shape the world of Carto to your design.

There isn’t currently a release date for Carto, but you can sign up for the developer’s newsletter on their website.

Jupiter is a prolific indie game journalist, writing for Metro UK, Big Boss Battle, AlphaBetaGamer, and many more, all with a focus on smaller indie gems. She covers thousands of game jams and indie games on her YouTube channel, letting every game have a moment in the spotlight. She runs indiegamejams.com, a calendar of all of the game jams going on in the world, judges many jams and events. Jupiter is also the Adept Games Wizard at Armor Games where she finds free-to-play, browser-based games to bring on board to their web portal.